The Collected Poems of Chika Sagawa by Chika Sagawa

Author:Chika Sagawa [Sagawa, Chika]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2020-08-11T00:00:00+00:00

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Seasons, returning without a doubt and without any error in their path, and traveling around the world without any warning—when they burst forth with countless sprouted seeds, how we had desired the exuberant construction of plants. With similar speed, the plants share their short feathers with all the fields in this world of avarice, leading people to look in different directions. Because our usual field of vision had been replaced by something unfamiliar before anyone could notice, we came to crave the intensity of color and freedom.

I see the day break through the shaggy, kinky green gates. The dawn that comes from the depths of the atmosphere, flowing gently like the clearing mist, is a beautiful labyrinth. People tend to have unseemly thoughts when they encounter that which is too beautiful. Something bad must have happened while we were sleeping. It appears calm on the surface but only because it conceals a secret, this quiet brimming with eerie uncertainty. If I don’t scream soon I might be killed. Why not rebel, steeped in this stagnant air. We are possessed by humid air rising from thick grass that suffocates and confines us, and yet the plants steal all vitality away from humans, staging a banquet without end.

I believed at once that trees have blue blood running through them. Because they speak in such a prophet-like manner. Because the sap leaves small stains on our skin and muscles, my hands swell up, my heart about to tear from the cold. On farms in the Northern country, it is said that wheat must be quickly harvested and dried, lest the calves come tearing through the fence, and also that wool scarves should be prepared. Soon the snow will come and freeze over the trees.

My friends have started to plan their days around the patterns in the sky and colors of flowers. They worry about the state of the weather, measuring warmth or coldness at the tips of their fingernails. They believe in some kind of promise, or communication, between the color of their clothes or lipstick, for example, or even the placement of furniture, with the scene outside their windows. They believe that they are controlled by these subtle gradations, and feel the need to constantly be in harmony with the landscape. At times they try to bloom more beautifully than a flower. This is why, as they gaze at the colors of flower petals, or watch the growth of a tree, their skin and their movements are changing all of their own accord.

The plants, abundant with change, grow so vigorously that I am no longer able to read books or smoke cigarettes. In an attempt to not miss the slightest movement in their expressions—their branches are swaying, they are fiercely surrounded—my own expressiveness becomes something quite useless. Even raising my hand, or laughing, is nothing but a precise imitation of their expressions. There is not a single thing that is mine, I am simply repeating their movements, stealing their expressions.

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